The one with the Personal Values Inventory

I’m participating in a Leadership Development Program at work, this is for all managers not at the Executive Level” and is in a number of sessions.

This current week we did “Engagement, Motivation and Goal Setting“. Part of this was a “Know You” question and we were asked to write down our own “Values Inventory”

This might or might not be something you spend time thinking about, or you may act according to a set of self imposed set of things that you feel you “just have” or “just are.”

I like these things because they test your capacity to understand you and challenges you to think about where you are in the big scheme of things.

Anyway as affirmation I went online to find some self assessments for my own Personal Values Inventory. and I found a simple one that offered up some possibilities. A simple paired statement comparison – A or B, A or B pick one. They cycle through some choices and then you get a result.

And boy am I miffed!

When you then get to the end of the assessment, where you pick on of the paired statements over the other you transfer them to a tick sheet.

Answer 9 relates to :  RELIGION (Guided by God or other higher power)

Not INTEGRITY, or AUTHENTICITY or HONESTY but RELIGION.

Well excuse me if you think that “my beliefs” that I would rather do the right thing other than have people think well of me means that I have some hat tip to a deity. What utter nonsense. The fact that I’m atheist shouldn’t stand in the way of a good result right.

Choose God or being tidy.. what?

According to this particular self assessment then I’m very big on

• SERVICE (helping other people)
• FAMILY RELATIONS
• RELIGION (guided by God or other higher power)
• INDEPENDENCE (doing thing by myself)
• ADVENTURE (taking risks)

and I’m really not so big on

• INFLUENCE/STATUS (leading through experience)
• ORDERLINESS
• FRIENDS

So either I was having a strange day, or the results of this particular version of the pop quiz are a bit iffy.

Related articles

• Knowing Yourself First, Part I (mondaymentor.wordpress.com)
• 3 steps to sustainable leadership, high levels of engagement and great results (markgrantlondon.wordpress.com)